Matt's orders were immediately carried out. The four uninjured Chilians were shown into the room abaft the periscope chamber, and the injured man was left on the locker. Carl and Matt went down into the torpedo room, and Dick, Clackett, and Speake sprawled out in the tank room and motor room. Gaines, in pursuance of orders, went on guard in the periscope chamber.
Matt, being dog tired, was asleep almost as soon as he lay down on his blankets. Carl was tired himself, but he would have liked to talk a little, in spite of that. As Matt slipped off into slumber under his first remark, the Dutch boy had to go to sleep.
All was quiet in the boat, save for the ventilator fan humming softly in the motor room and sending fresh air throughout the steel hull.
No matter how wildly the gale howled over the surface of Possession Bay, thirty feet down in its depths all was quiet and serene.
When Matt was awakened, it was by a wild yell echoing weirdly through the vessel. At first he thought he had been dreaming, and he sat up, in the Stygian blackness of the torpedo room, and listened in bewilderment.
A moment more and he knew that what he had heard was not a dream. The boat, poised on the ocean bed, rocked with the frantic movements of some one in the periscope room.
"Vat id iss, Matt?" came the voice of Carl through the darkness.
"Give it up," answered Matt. "Switch on the light, Carl, so we can see what we're about."
Carl could be heard getting to his feet and groping for the electric switch. Presently the torpedo room was flooded with light and Matt rushed for the open door in the bulkhead.
Just as he reached it, a revolver exploded in the tank room, and a bullet whizzed past his head and struck the torpedo tube.
Matt paused only a moment. He knew that the Chilians were up to some rascally piece of work, and that it would stand him and his friends in hand to get busy without delay.
With a shout to Carl to follow, Matt plunged through the doorway, and was met with a terrific blow that threw him, half stunned, backward against Carl. Carl tripped over a box, grabbed at Matt to save himself, and both fell sprawling. Before they could get up four Chilians were upon them, holding them by main strength.